


divine infestation

by Princex_N



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst, Brainweird, Bugs & Insects, Canon Compliant, Delusions, Disorganized Thoughts, Gen, Hallucinations, Mental Health Issues, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:55:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24523444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: They've stopped at a motel for the night; a handful of hours for Jay to look through footage, for Tim to stretch his legs, for both of them to get whatever sleep they can manage.There are gnats in the room.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13
Collections: Religiously Themed Delirium





	divine infestation

Dread lays heavy low in Tim's stomach, thrumming with the need to _do_ something when there's simply nothing to be done. 

There are gnats collected in the motel room. Jay swats at them half-heartedly where he's hunched over his laptop, startling slightly every time Tim lashes out to smash an insect between his palms. 

The bugs won't stay out of his face, and Tim finds it infuriating - a petty annoyance steadily growing into something worse. They dart out of reach every time Tim lunges for them, but return mere moments later to buzz disconcertingly in his ear or dive straight at his eyes. He'd swear that there's only two of them, but he would have said that an hour ago, and he's killed three of them since then. 

Tim wouldn't be half-surprised if they weren't real to begin with, it's happened before, but Jay's loosely flapping hand is a testament to at least one of them actually existing. So, that's something. 

(Is it better if they are actually real? Something fetid and decaying in Tim's gut that they want for themselves, he can almost feel them crawling inside of him. Maybe they were inside of him to begin with, tucked safe in the gel of his eyes and the marrow of his bones. The ones that escaped desperate to find their way back inside, equally as frustrated as him that he won't let them through. But that's ridiculous, right? Crazy bullshit. Tim's pulse is fine, which means his body is fine, and the gnats are just a staple of the dingy motel that they chose to stay in tonight.)

(But when something itches at the corner of his eye, just an eyelash he knows, his head is full of flies and maggots, tiny legs crawling through tear ducts. He rubs the feeling out with more force than necessary, just in case.)

There's nothing wrong, he knows that. They stopped for the night because Tim can't sleep in the car (open and vulnerable, locked doors don't mean shit and six windows are six too many, even if Jay is actively driving) and Jay's turn behind the wheel had gone on long enough that staying on the road was an increasingly bad idea. There's nothing wrong, because if something _was_ wrong, they wouldn't be at the motel, they'd be on the road. Tim might have some Opinions about Jay and his long term plans, but Jay's better at listening to his anxiety and paranoia than Tim would ever be allowed to. 

And yet, Tim can't find himself convinced. 

He makes a weak grab for a gnat in front of his eye. They feel like an omen, bad luck and a worse signal. Something rotten and decaying in the air, in the area, in the atmosphere. Insistent on Tim's skin to spread infection, to warn him off, to drive him away before he can find the root of their infestation. 

What would he do with it, if it did find it? Tear it clear from the floor with bitten nails and bruised fingers, stomp the swarm before they could eat his eyes. There's sympathy for the devil but god exists like a presence in Tim's blood, in his head, and the destruction of the rot would be unleashed and relinquished whether Tim wants it to be or not, stained blood and exposed bone, Tim would not find himself spared by the holy water if it should spill. 

He wants to look for it. He knows there's no point, because it's not as if it's _real_ , but it could be. He doubts that a place like this is ever as clean as it should be, he's worked at motels before, not payed enough to give enough of a shit. There's no point in looking, because Tim is familiar enough with these fragments of thoughts to know that they don't make any sense, but there's an impulse that won't fade, whispering under his skin. He should look for it. Just to make sure. But Jay is watching, and that means Tim won't. 

There's a headache blooming behind his eye, pressing sharp against the nerves until the pain makes him wince, palm rising to press against the socket. Tiny teeth gnawing through meat and nerve and tendon, crawling out of bone and swarming. He's probably nauseated because he hasn't eaten, but they only have one packet of trail mix, and Tim's too sick to be truly hungry. 

The number for his doctor is saved in Tim's phone, this might be something worth an appointment. It's not a setback, not unusual enough to be a Big Deal, but it's stretched like taffy over days and won't fade, and he wonders if it's stress or something more (what if the meds aren't _working?)._ But Tim's been dosing himself wildly as of late, and doesn't want to explain it. Doesn't want to explain the little road trip he's on, the companion he's on it with. He's never been good at talking when he gets like this anyway. Quiet requests and demands to know what he's thinking, and Tim would try because he didn't know how to lie well as a child, but there's no way to explain that the thoughts are black static glass in his head, and trying to coalesce them into something coherent to speak aloud is like treading over broken mirrors with bare feet. Impossible, painful, hopeless. There would be no point. 

Maybe it isn't rot at all, actually. The gnats aren't warnings or precursors but vultures seeking an opportunity to destroy and consume something holier than them. Divinity bleeds black from Tim's eyes, festering like an open wound, an unwitting call for the maggots to come and feast. Is that option really any better? Sometimes it's hard to tell. 

Tim wants to scream. Wants to curl into a ball, wrap his limbs tight around his head to keep the insects out of it, tense his muscles until he can't anymore and let the hollow ache of exhaustion help him unconscious so that he doesn't have to withstand these thoughts and sensations anymore. He can feel their legs on him, marching over his skin, seeking an opening, ready and eager to consume him from the inside out until there's not anything left. 

A headache buzzes in his brain, up from the base of his skull. He scratches absently at the underside of his jaw, dreaming of splitting the skin open under ragged nails - would he be letting the insect legs out or simply providing them a way in?

His skin crawls. 

"Do you mind if I turn the lights off?" Jay asks, and Tim looks at him, scrawny and exhausted and rumpled, possibly worse off than Tim but still a chance at a savior. Tim wants to beg, _'Do you see them on me? Can you get them off of me? Make them leave me alone? Can you bring me a trashcan I can vomit into? Can you spare the money for insect repellent? Do you think they would stop trying to crawl into my skin if I drank it?'_

Tim shakes his head. "It's fine," he says, voice carefully flat. 

There's nothing wrong, he knows. It's just ridiculous thoughts, right? Crazy bullshit. Tim's fine, he always is, and he's used to this by now, he has to be. 

That's all it is. Right?

**Author's Note:**

> haha, you know those #Relatable feels when there are gnats in your apartment, right? 
> 
> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
